Deinstitutionalization
What the neoliberalization of medicine has led to. Pharmaceuticals can serve to institutionalize the minds of those would be inmates so they can finally learn to take some responsibility for their lives. I jest, but the closing of the mental health institutions puts new duties and pressures on those in law enforcement and prison guards.

Duties they may very well not be trained to perform, such as sensibly defusing an intense schizophrenic episode when these powerful anti-psychotics aren't taken or fail. I feel conflicted over this tact. Sure, no one wants to be locked away against their will, but surely we are not acting socially responsible by closing institutions, the only place we have conceived to store the afflicted, and relying on anti-psychotic drugs to pacify their symptoms enough so they are able to be cared for by the community, and for numerous reasons. We know these drugs are dangerous, Zyprexa, a popular anti-psychotic, has been linked to diabetes. In clinical studies conducted before Zyprexa was approved, between 1 in every 100 and 1 in every 1,000 people taking Zyprexa developed diabetes (http://schizophrenia.emedtv.com/zyprexa/zyprexa-and-diabetes.html. Retrieved September 28, 2012.)
Thorazine, "besides slowing down the brains of patients, had awful side effects that doctors came to call "extrapyramidal" muscular tremors, facial twitching. Patients on Thorazine were often stunned into immobility; in extreme cases, they wound up staring at the ceiling, their eyeballs locked in place. Others drifted aimlessly, a compulsion so common it became known as the "Thorazine Shuffle" (Wallace, Ben Wells. (February 2, 2009). Bitter Pill. Rolling Stone, p. 56-76.). As a civilized society, I would argue, we owe those most vulnerable in our society far better than how they're being treated. We pump them full of drugs that effectively zombify them, killing their personality and creativity. Not that such patients shouldn't be medicated, it's more the method I object to. We could potentially learn much about ourselves caring and studying those afficted with such disorders. Surely a more humane and fruitful program can be implemented than arrangement the neoliberalist austerity agenda currently walking hand-in-hand with big pharma's multi billion dollar guinea pigization of clientelle. The social contract surely needs to be re-negotiated as medicine and health care should not be a for profit industry. An industry more interested in profit margins and satisfying shareholders than doing genuine good for our species. Ironic that the many of the most vocal opponents of the Affordable Care act are pro-life right wingers. As the late, great Bill Hicks used to say "If you're so pro-life then love the people who are already here. Love all people or shut the fuck up!"
Ecks psychiatric biouniversalism is certainly a large pill to swallow, but I think this may have been the most fun idea to play around with so far. The United States scarfs up most of the pharmaceutical drugs on a global scale but big pharma's market is expanding. Why would this be? Well, it could be that the carceral world we've created in the United States, starting with school, then most of those that graduate from that instituion move on to be dominated by the institutional rules of our corporatized jobs. We are moving farther away from our true nature and are psychically rebelling this strangling non-reality. Years of strain and stress under these conditions inspire us to turn to drugs to help with institutionalized life. Or as many might refer to it, freedom. Ha!
Well with globalization these repetative, mind numbing jobs are being exported around the world to the country with the right amount of regulations and most importantly cheap labor. What's happening is that these people working these jobs are psychically rebelling and are medicated in order to cope with the non-reality of drudgery survivalism. Neoliberalist capitalism is creating a psychic unity as a coping mechanism for the robotization of the 99%, for failure of a better term. The relationship is reminiscent of that between the Morlocks and the Eloi in H.G. Wells, The Time Machine, in creating a docile herd medicated to accept a break with human nature. The difference lies in that the Eloi's carcass is devoured by it's predators. In our case our humanity is devoured by a beast with an unquenchable appetite, then our bodies are discarded when they no longer serve a purpose.
Sort of like what George Carlin had been saying for 20 years.
